and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; 14 then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such 15 abomination is wrought in the midst of thee; thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, 'destroying it utterly, and all that is therein and the 16 cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof 2every whit, unto the LORD thy God: and it shall be an 17 3heap for ever; it shall not be built again. And there shall 2 Or, as a whole burnt offering 1 Heb. devoting it. 3 Or, mound Heb. tel. drawn away] v. 5: draw thee aside (q.v.). 14. inquire] See xi. 12, xii. 30, xvii. 4, 9, xix. 18; in this sense or a similar darash is used elsewhere in the Pent. only in Lev. x. 16. Make search, hakar, investigate, in D only here; elsewhere of exploring a land and of examining a case (Job xxix. 16). Ask diligently, well, or thoroughly; ask, sha’al, like darash, to make inquest. and the thing certain] or the story established or substantiated (xvii. 4), or the case well-founded. abomination] See on vii. 25. 15. thou shalt surely] i.e. the whole nation. with the edge of] Hebrew, mouth of. destroying it utterly] devoting or putting it to the ban or herem. On this see ii. 34; it is the hardest form of the herem which is here pronounced upon an apostate city of Israel. and the cattle, etc.] Not in LXX; probably a later addition to the law and if so illustrative of the ease with which its varied forms and degrees of stringency (see on ii. 34) arose (but see Driver's note here). 16. street] broad or open place. So far as they have been unearthed the streets of ancient Canaanite towns were as narrow as those of the villages of modern Palestine. But there was always a broad place, just inside the gate, where local courts and consultations were held. every whit] a whole offering, holocaust. Hebrew kalil usually synonymous with 'olah (see xii. 6), but here used of the herem; so in Judg. xx. 40 of a city set on fire and its smoke: the whole offering of the city went up to heaven. an heap] or mound. Heb., as Ar., tel (tell), in both languages also applied to the mounds on which living cities stand, their dead selves; cleave nought of the devoted thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; when thou shalt 18 hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God. the remains of their previous gradual decay or overthrow: all the cities standing on their mounds (Josh. xi. 13, etc.). 17. devoted thing] The thing banned, as well as the banning, was called herem. See on ii. 34, vii. 26, and cp. Josh. vi. 18. turn from the fierceness of his anger] So Josh. vii. 26, after the ḥerem was fulfilled on Achan. and shew thee mercy, etc.] Jer. xlii. 12. multiply thee] Again this promise! i. 10, vi. 3 (q.v.), vii. 13, etc. 18. The usual condition attached to promises in Deut.: possibly editorial. right] Sam., LXX add and good. CH. XIV. 1-21. INSERTED LAWS ON RITES FOR THE DEAD, Between two laws, which forbid to Israel, as holy to Jehovah, certain rites of mourning for the dead, xiv. I f., and the eating of what has died a natural death (with an appendix against seething a kid in its mother's milk), v. 21-both of which contain deuteronomic phrases-there lies a passage, vv. 3-20, on clean and unclean foods, in which the language is not deuteronomic, but has phrases peculiar to P. The first law against the mourning customs cannot be earlier than the end of the 7th century when these customs were not only practised in Israel but regarded as sanctioned. Further there are no parallels to these laws in JE, except to v. 21, but there are parallels to all the rest in the late legislation of P (or H): Lev. xi. 2—23, xx. 25. Again the form of address is, unlike the laws in xiii. and xiv. 22 ff., throughout in the Pl., save only for the deuteronomic phrases in vv. 2, 3, and 21. All this is reasonable ground for taking the whole section as a later (exilic or post-exilic) addition to the code of D (with the possible exceptions of vv. 3, 21 which may be fragments of the original D). Note that there is no reference to such laws in the reforms of Josiah. The relations of this section to its parallel in Lev. xi. 2-23 are uncertain. Lev. does not contain the list of clean beasts which our form of the law gives, v. 4, but otherwise is more elaborate and detailed. Probably neither is derived from the other, but both are developments from a common origin. Further the LXX version of our law varies from the Heb. Altogether then we have here another instance of the currency of various editions of the same law, tending to grow in different ways, 14 Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes 1 f. AGAINST CERTAIN RITES FOR THE Dead. No parallel in JE; but one in H, Lev. xix. 28 a. : 1. Sons are ye to Jehovah your God] The order of the EVV. misses the emphasis. Note not merely the change to the Pl. address but its cause, the conception of individual Israelites as the sons of Jehovah not elsewhere in D. In the discourses in D Israel, the nation, is as the son of Jehovah, i. 31, viii. 5 and so more definitely in J, Ex. iv. 22 f., Hosea xi. 1, and Jeremiah xxxi. 20. The transition from this conception to the statement of Jehovah's fatherhood of Israelites as individuals was natural; the two conceptions occur together in the Song xxxii. 5, 6 and in Hosea and Jeremiah. The latter is already found in the 8th century, Ho. i. 10, Isai. i. 2. But as we advance through the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with their strong individualism, to the exilic and post-exilic writings we find a great increase of references to Israelites as the sons of Jehovah, Jer. iii. 14, 19, 22, iv. 22, Ezek. (ii. 4?), xx. 21, 'Isai.' lxiii. 8, 16, Ixiv. 8 (cp. lvii. 4), Mal. ii. 10, Deut. xxxii. 5, Pss. lxxiii. 15, lxxxii. 6. This is contemporary with the breaking up of the Jewish state and the destruction of the national worship. While then it is clear that one cannot take sons of Jehovah in this law as by itself proof of an exilic or post-exilic date, we can say that if it does not add to, it at least agrees with, the evidence in that direction adduced in the note below. Many ancient nations believed in their descent from gods or demigods; and among them the Semitic peoples, e.g. the Moabites are called sons and daughters of Kemosh, Num. xxi. 29. But the relation was conceived physically. In the O.T. God's fatherhood and Israel's sonship are historical and ethical, based not on physical generation, but on an act of love on God's part, on His choice, or adoption (cp. Rom. ix. 4) of the people, and on His deliverance of them from Egypt; and it is carried out by His providence of love and moral chastisement (see the references above and cp. Amos iii.), which is nowhere more tenderly described than in this Book. But when all the O.T. references to God as the Father whether of Israel or Israelites and to them as His children have been reckoned up, how few are they in comparison to the number of times that sons, and children, of God occur in the N.T. God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba Father (Gal. iv. 6); joint heirs with Christ (Rom. viii. 17). ye shall not cut or gash yourselves] So of the priests of Ba‘al (1 Kgs xviii. 28) and in Ar. one form of the vb. is used of mutilations of animals, Lev. xix. 28: you shall put no incision on your flesh (cp. xxi. 5) nor any tattooing upon you. nor set a baldness between your eyes] Lev. xxi. 5: not make-a baldness on their head neither shave off the corner of their beard. for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD 2 thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, 'above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth. 1 Or, out of for the dead] That these customs were not practised merely from excess of grief, nor only as testifying to the continuance of the mourner's blood-covenant with the dead, but also in acknowledgement of the divinity of the latter and as the mourners' consecration to them, is implied in the reason given in v. 2 for Israel's abstention from such things. Jehovah's people are holy and sacred to Himself alone. Hence, too, the inclusion of this law among those against the worship of strange gods. Moreover Jer. xvi. 7 describes a communion feast as part of the same rites. May not also the choice of the expression sons are ye to Jehovah be due to this cause, as if such rites implied an ancestor worship? For the worship of their ancestors by Arab tribes who bring offerings and sacrifice at their graves see Musil, Ethn. Ber. 329. For the prevalence, among many ancient nations, particularly the Semitic, as well as among modern peoples, of these customs of gashing the flesh and shaving part of the hair or beard, apparently always with a religious implication, see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 302 ff. Gashing, both of face and body called Tashrit' (cp. Heb.) was explained to Burton in Mekka as a sign that the scarred was the servant of Allah's House.' (Pilgrimage, etc. 11. 234.) Mohammed expressly forbad the practice. The O.T. confirms it for Moab (Isai.' xv. 2) and the Philistines (Jer. xlvii. 5), and states that both customs were practised in Israel not only as usual and natural in mourning (equally so with the wearing of sackcloth), but as even sanctioned by Israel's God (Am. viii, 10: Is. xxii. 12): he calls to weeping...and baldness; Jer. xvi. 6: as His punishment of an evil generation, the usual rites of mourning for its dead, including gashing and baldness, shall not be observed; xli. 5: men come from Shechem to the house of Jehovah with shaven heads and having gashed themselves; Ezek. vii. 18. Note, too, the absence from the earlier legislation of a law against these practices. The law first appears here and in H, Lev. xix. 28, xxi. 25. Unknown to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and to those Shechem Jews who, in obedience to the central law of D, brought their offerings to the Temple, this law cannot have formed part of the original code of D; but is an exilic or post-exilic addition. 2. For thou art an holy people, etc.] Almost exactly as vii. 6 (q.v.). Note also the Sg. address in contrast to the Pl. of the context. This v. is, therefore, probably an addition by the hand which inserted these later laws in the code of D. 3-20. OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN BEASTS, FISHES AND BIRDS. Paralleled with elaborations in H, Lev. xi. 2-23 (see introductory note above p. 183; and cp. the comparative table in Driver's Deut. 157 ff.; the chief similarities and differences are noted in the notes below), and very summarily also in Lev. xx. 25, H: ye shall separate between clean beast and unclean, and between unclean fowl and clean 3 4 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, 5 the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild and shall not render your souls detestable (cp. vii. 26, xi. 31, xii. 11) by beast or fowl or anything wherewith the ground creepeth which I have separated from you as unclean.--In JE there is no parallel.-The references below to Tristram are to his Fauna and Flora of Western Palestine in the PEF Survey of W. Pal.; those to Doughty are to his Arabia Deserta. 3. Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing] The same noun as abomination, vii. 25, 9.v.; a term characteristic of D. The clause being also in the Sg. in a Pl. context (to which Sam., LXX have harmonised it) may be either the original law of D on this subjectcp. every abomination, xii. 31-or, like v. 2, an addition by the deuteronomic editor. 4. These are the beasts which ye shall eat] Lev. xi. 2-23 has no list of clean beasts such as here follows. ox, sheep, goat] For the sacramental nature of the slaying and eating of domestic animals see on xii. 20-28. In ancient times the enjoyment of flesh by ordinary people was rare; that of the domestic animals was limited to special occasions such as the arrival of a guest, or a family festival, but kings and the rich ate it every day, and successful raids were celebrated by feasting upon the animal spoil (e.g. Judg. vi. 19, 1 Sam. xiv. 32, xvi. 20, xxv. 18, xxviii. 24, 2 Sam. xii. 4, 1 Kgs iv. 23, Am. vi. 4). The flesh was, as still in Syria and Arabia, usually of sheep and goats; Arabs regard the former as the more honourable for a guest. Bullocks and calves were slain much more seldom, except in great houses. So it is still with the fellaḥin; while in Arabia, where pasture is scarce and the oxen are for the most part meagre and stunted, ox flesh is very rarely eaten; and its place is taken by that of the camel (see below). Ancient Arab physicians held beef to be poisonous; in parts of S. Arabia it was eaten only by the very poor; to set it even before a servant was regarded as an insult (Georg Jacob, Altarabisches Beduinenleben, 94). 5. Seven varieties of game; LXX B gives only five: hart, gazelle, roebuck, wild-ox and giraffe (?); codd. AF, etc. add after gazelle, buffalo and tragelaphos. It may not be unnecessary to remark that neither to the nomads nor to the fellahîn is hunting sport; it is, especially to the former, a hard and hungry search for food. The nomad is not a hunter' (Doughty, I. 157). The hunters of Arabia are the Sleyb, wandering gypsies without cattle and camels: according to Burckhardt (p. 12) they live on dried gazelle-flesh. Besides the varieties of game given here as edible, the ancient Arabs relished also the flesh of the wild-ass (Georg Jacob, op. cit. 115). hart and gazelle] 'Ayyal, sebi: see on xii. 22; cp. xii. 15, xv. 22; hart probably fallow deer, cervus dama; gazelle, gazella dorcas. < |